


But Monsters are Always Hungry, Darling

by dynamicsymmetry



Series: Pacify [24]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Blindfolds, Choking, Dirty Talk, Edgeplay, F/M, Fear Play, Gags, Knifeplay, Outdoor Sex, Porn with Feelings, Rope Bondage, Rough Sex, Slapping, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 13:00:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10514274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dynamicsymmetry/pseuds/dynamicsymmetry
Summary: By now, Beth and Daryl have pushed a lot of limits, and expanded them beyond what they ever would have imagined. But Beth wants to take things even further, among the woods and the walkers, and she's never put trust in Daryl like this before.





	

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO YES THIS SERIES IS STILL ALIVE
> 
> Honestly I don't think Pacify will ever truly die, it's just become something I only poke at when I feel truly moved. I've been wanting to try this for a while and I finally did, yay. Honestly, given how much I love knifeplay and how into it I headcanon Daryl potentially being, it's kind of odd to me that I haven't done anything significant with it after [this,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3315470) until now. I need to fix that. Knives are great. 
> 
> I need to issue some heartfelt thanks to Mollie for helping me work through some of this, and also for some heavy and not entirely conscious-at-the-time inspiration from one specific part of [this.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10511274) I also need to issue a caution that _I know this is extremely unsafe in actual fact._ This is where we swerve decidedly into the realm of fantasy, which, if you didn't know we were already there, I'm not sure what to tell you. But yeah. 
> 
> Basically do not tie your sub up in the woods surrounded by walkers even if you do have a very reliable alarm system. 
> 
> Finally, yeah, this is a two-parter. Basically I'll be writing this scenario twice, first from Beth's POV and second from Daryl's. Not sure when I'll get Daryl's part written but hopefully it'll be pretty soon. I think it could be a neat exercise. 
> 
> blah blah anyway comments are lovely if you are so inclined, here is the sex

Her arms are beginning to ache when she hears the distant growl of the first walker, wafting through the trees to her like a bad smell.

Instinctively, she tugs at the ropes, twitches her body forward and away from the trunk and only succeeds in making her arms hurt even worse. Still not bad, but if he left her like this for long enough, it would get there - this she knows from extremely personal experience. But this is _not_ anything from her personal experience. Not taken in an entire package.

That's the point.

Jangle of the alarms. Still a long way off. But her stomach somersaults and she bites back a whimper as her imagination stirs and begins to rise, begins to gather together a collection of unignorably horrific images. The tree bark is rough against her shoulders through the worn fabric of her shirt, and against the bare skin of her upper arms and elbows. He used her elbows as one of his several attach points when he bound her to the tree, wrapped a layer of rope around each and pulled them back far enough to force her spine to arch and her chest to thrust outward. Another series of loops around her midsection, and finally her ankles the same as her elbows, binding her legs apart. Not wide, but wide enough, and there's no way she can close them.

The trunk isn't vastly thick, but it's big enough that she can't get her arms fully around it, and with her entire body braced against it like this, it feels massive. She feels small, weak. She feels as defenseless as she ever has. Moss cool and soft under her bootless feet, sunlight dappled through the branches overhead, and the sleepy calls of doves and chatter of squirrels on a warm afternoon in early summer. If not for so many other things, it would be idyllic, but she barely notices those items of pleasant sensory input now. There's only the strain in her muscles, her inability to move more than a few inches in any direction, and the growls and hisses of that walker as it doggedly batters itself against the fence he made, strong wires wrapped multiple times around the trees that encircle her.

Behind her, mostly. She can't see it. All she can to is stand there and try to breathe.

It scented her. It'll draw others.

She can't help it anymore. A low, frightened sound escapes her - and seconds later there's the _thunk_ of a bolt hitting home and the growling cuts off. She swallows, shifts her feet as best she can. He's out there, patrolling. Watching her. Drinking in her vulnerability, how he could do anything he wanted to her. Fuck her. Hurt her.

Let them devour her.

There have been so many times where he made her feel afraid, and each time it was part of the game. It wasn't fear with roots; it never went down very far. It was fear as a delicious little frisson, darkly pleasurable, flooding her pussy wet. Beneath it she always knew she was safe with him. She always knew she was as safe with him as it's possible to be with anyone.

She knows it now. But this is fear beyond anything he's ever made her feel.

Crackle of leaves, twigs. A shadow moving at the periphery of her vision. Another hiss, closer, and another clatter from the alarm. The shadow is probably him but it's moving slow, she can't really see it, and maybe it's not him. Maybe it's one of them. Maybe they're coming for her, sloughing their rotting flesh with their jaws moving as if they're trying to speak, and when they reach her they’ll rip her open and spill her guts into a tangle at her feet and she’ll still be alive while they eat her.

Her head falls back against the tree and stars flicker behind her closed lids.

Once more the sound of the walker abruptly disappears.

“Please,” she whispers. The muscles of her thighs are quivering, uncontrollable. She shouldn't be wet but Christ, she is; she might be soaking the crotch of her jeans dark. She wanted this. It was her idea. She _asked_ for it, and it took some carefully applied pressure to get him to give in. Now he has, and he's a looming shadow somewhere just outside the range of her vision, and she's so scared and she wants his dick in her so fucking bad.

 _Please._ The whisper returns to her so low and soft that it might only be the breeze, but she swallows and tries again.

“Daryl… Oh my God, _please,_ please help me, I’ll-” Acting, playing a role they selected and planned as carefully as the rest of this scenario, and there's always her word if she needs it. But she doesn't, doesn't want to reach for it, and in fact with every word she's acting less and less. “I'll be good. I promise.”

Screech of a hawk somewhere above her, and as if it's a signal he melts out of the trees, still too far to her side for her to see him clearly. But as she turns her head and strains to get a glimpse of him, he steps fully into her field of vision, immediately lowers the bow and sets it down beside him.

Her throat locks up when she sees the gleam of the knife in his hand.

It's a big knife. Yet it allows him a kind of fine control that you wouldn't expect from its size, and it's one of his favorites to use on her. She stares at it, at the impossibly keen edge and the serrations closer to the hilt, his thick fingers wrapped around it and lifting it to her belly. Her eyes flick up to his face - and he's fallen as deep into the role as she has, his eyes thrown into shadow even as the rest of him is caught by the sunlight. Cool, predatory evaluation. Callous lust. The point of the blade pricks the skin at the apex of her ribcage and she trembles.

There’s the danger of the walkers out there, and then there's him in here.

“I'll be good,” she says again, her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. She can feel her pulse in her clit as she grinds uselessly against the seam of her jeans, a tiny maddening throb. “I'll do- I'll do whatever you want. I'll do anything you say. Just- just _please_.”

He flashes her a grin - quick and so wonderfully cruel - and begins to cut her clothes off.

He's done it plenty of times before and now he just about has it down to an art. He does it in swift, expert slashes, from the neckline of her shirt all the way down to her waistband, up through her sleeves, and with a single sharp tug he pulls the whole thing off. Her jeans - that takes a little more time and effort - and then back up to her bra. Good bras aren't the easiest thing to come by now, but he's in a place where he doesn't give a shit and neither does she, and he slices easily through the straps and the band, jerks it off and lets it fall to the ground with the rest.

Edge of the blade gliding down the curves of her tits. Scraping so lightly over her nipples and scattering sparks in its wake. She tips her head back, moaning in the pit of her throat, and somehow she manages not to flinch.

She loses it when he reaches her panties.

She’s completely shaved down there. He liked it so much when she started doing it that he's ordered her to keep it maintained that way, and she knows that some of it is the appeal when she's batting her lashes at him and calling him _Daddy,_ but even more it's the simple fact of how exposed it makes her. He can see everything, see her pussy lips even when her legs aren't parted for him, and when he wants to use his tongue on her there's nothing at all between his mouth and the smooth expanse of her skin. Now it's the exposure, how she feels every millimeter of the blade as he slides it under the elastic and across her mound, dips it, and she squeaks as the very tip grazes the hood of her clit.

“Hold still,” he says quietly. Evenly. “Or I'll cut you the fuck up and leave you.”

Instantly she clams up, swallows her frightened whines and wrestles back her trembling. It's not perfect but it's enough; he continues without any further pause and cuts through one leg hole with a brisk twitch of his hand, does the other one, and her panties fall to her feet.

And she's naked and spread wide open, air cool on the insides of her thighs as her arousal overflows and trickles down them, and she wonders whether she would see it dripping into the moss if she lowered her head, and she wonders if walkers can smell that the same way they seem to smell blood.

As if they're answering her, a clank and a groan. More than one. Daryl has the blade pressed against her mound, inching toward her pussy, but he halts and looks up, and she thinks of a wolf alerted and sniffing the air.

Turns back to her, studies her for a few seconds, and she sees the sparkle of the idea behind his eyes as he bends to the pile of her discarded clothes. A couple of sharp tearing noises and he straightens up again, strips of her shirt in his hands.

Not just her shirt. She has time to glimpse the off-white cotton of her panties as he grips her jaw and forces it down.

“Open up.”

Not like she has a choice. But she obeys, and he jams her panties into her mouth. Not far enough to choke her, but the sound she lets out is choked, and then mixed surprise and alarm as he wraps one of the strips around her head, holding the gag in place. She whines, twists, and he lands a light slap on her face before wrapping the second strip around her eyes and tying it in one smooth motion.

“I gotta take care of that.” He takes her jaw again - not quite as rough this time - and brushes his lips against hers. Fleeting. Nearly chaste. “Don't go nowhere.”

He's gone and she's alone. Alone in her own personal darkness, muffled sobs pushing out through the gag, and trying without hope of success to tilt her hips back enough to give her pussy some friction against the bark, because she's so fucking _hot,_ burning with it, and if he doesn't give her clit some attention when he comes back she thinks she might scream. It’s possible that he anticipated that, given the gag.

She expects the sounds of the walker to cut off. They don't.

Instead they get louder.

Confusion rushes through her. He was going out there to stop it. That's what he's been doing this whole time - keeping them off her. Keeping them away. Now she can hear it moving closer, slowly but as sure as they ever are, the leaves crunching with its arrhythmic gait.

He's not stopping it. It's coming for her.

Suddenly she's pulling at the ropes, struggling, and part of her remains absolutely certain that she's safe no matter what she hears but another part of her is collapsing into utter panic, flailing heat pouring into her veins and shooting all through her. Because she's blind and staked out for it like bait, like a fucking walker _treat,_ and she can't even scream. She can't even scream when it kills her, and where the _fuck_ is Daryl, why isn't he _helping_ her, oh my God, she said she would be good, she _promised him-_

Once more, the satisfying punch as a bolt sends it tumbling to the ground.

He's an asshole. He's a fucking _asshole,_ and so help her God, she’ll find a way to make him pay for it later. Oh, he’ll pay and then some.

But at the moment she doesn't give a fuck, even now. She wriggles but not with the object of getting free, makes frantic noises behind the gag but only some of them are angry. The rest are pleading, her legs shaky with fear and need, willing him to come back to her and touch her and play with her like she knows he wants to, wants it just as bad as her. His cock must be trapped in the same pounding torture as her pussy - except worse, because so far as she knows, he's still constrained by his clothing.

Her pussy and nipples are free even if the rest of her isn't, though the air puffing across them is like an evilly teasing fingertip.

 Not like _his_ fingertips. And here they are - not against her pussy or her tits or any other part of her but instead resting against her cheek, his warm palm tipping her head up, withdrawn only long enough for him - going by the rustle of the leaves - to set down the bow. He's being so gentle with her, even at this one point of contact, and when he strokes his thumb down her jaw she knows he's stepped outside the game, and she knows why.

He pushed her. He pushed her further than she expected to be pushed - not further than she _wanted_ to be pushed, and by now he reliably knows the difference, and where to find that line. But he did. He pushed her limit and he pushed his own, and it's not about what her body is capable of enduring.

Said in a soft murmur, so full of love it cracks her heart: “Y’alright?”

Because she can no longer use her word. He has to be more careful with her now. She doesn't hesitate; she nods, does so vehemently. She is. This is what made her tell him, what made her want it in the first place - she's taken so much pain, learned so much more than she ever imagined possible about how strong she is, but fear is something else, fear and how much she trusts him, and it's something she wants to feel.

Wants to _know._

His lips against her cheekbone, above his hand. He's smiling, and the point of the knife is trailing lazily down her side to her hip; she imagines the trail it's leaving, the delicate white line of disturbed skin that flushes scarlet seconds later. How he's spent so long so many times in drawing fabulously intricate designs on her body, loops and swirls and spirals that left her breathless with their sheer beauty.

How he worships her, and this is simply another way.

“You're so brave,” he whispers. “Jesus Christ, Beth, you're so fuckin’ brave, I can't… I can't even believe it sometimes.”

She shivers. Even beneath the blindfold, her tears are stinging her eyes.

“I love you,” he says, and he parts her pussy lips with the edge of the blade.

The first time he did this, he devoted special care and attention to her cunt, traced every part with surgical precision. He pressed the knife against her labia, slid it smoothly up and down again, pushed back the hood and touched her clit with the point, sharp as a razor, and it was feather light but she battled back her screams and her writhing and moaned _no no no please Daryl don't_ as terror washed over her again and again, and when he finally stopped torturing her and replaced the knife with his tongue she came like she'd been shot out of a cannon.

He's done it many times since then. And the truth is that she's never stopped being terrified.

She keens when she feels the blade scrape against her inner lips, though it's as light as he's ever been, no longer fighting the ropes but depending on them to hold her up, because her legs are on the verge of betraying her. They're thick, thickly wrapped to distribute the pressure, and he’s excellent with ropes by now and must have expected this too, because as he drops into a crouch and pushes the knife slowly deeper, they take her weight and don't hurt her.

Much.

Not quite at her entrance. But so close, his fingers spreading her lips wider as he manipulates the knife with his other hand, little by little, and it _does_ reach her entrance, not exactly pain but the cold spiking harbinger of what it might be like, and her head falls loosely backward as she sobs.

“Want me to fuck you with this?” He sounds musing, as if he's actually considering the possibility. “Want this in your pussy, you slutty bitch?”

She inhales sharply - sharp as the knife, a hiss of breath that twists in her chest. He's been rough with her, even violent, and he's joined the violence with language like that before, but not like _this._ Not with this calculated cruelty, not tossing casual abuse at her with a knife held to her cunt.

So close to doing what he's suggesting. And now that he's said it, she can't think about anything else, and she keeps on sobbing. Not crying; somehow beyond crying. Ripples of fear and her desperate struggle to hold still for him, and trying to say his name through the gag. Trying to beg him not to.

The word is there, glittering in the dark. She's pretty sure, if she tried to say it, she could make herself understood.

She doesn't reach for it.

“Bet you do.” He shifts the blade; doesn't withdraw it but instead presses its flat against the inside of one lip. His breath is warm, puffing against her hip; he's all warm, radiating heat like the sun. Nothing between him and her, no branches and barely even space. She's completely unprotected from him. “You don't even care, do you? You'd take anythin’ up your dirty cunt. Long as you get fucked, you don't give a shit.”

He presses harder and she can hear the smile in his voice, and oh, she broke open something dark inside him all those months ago and she hasn't regretted it since, and she doesn't regret it now.

His heat swells, the wet of his mouth against her lower belly, and a spark of pain as he nips her and she yelps. Still doesn't move hardly at all and feels vaguely proud of herself for it. “Think maybe I will. Mm? Fuck you with my knife, get your pussy even wetter, fuck you with my cock and leave you out here. Leave you for _them._ ”

As if agreeing with him: somewhere nearby a walker snarls.

He didn't want to do this at first. He seemed mildly horrified by the idea. It took her a while to talk him through it, to calm him. Reassure him, like she always has, that she trusts him. That she loves him. That she's safe and he's safe too, and she wants his help in finding this place inside her. That they can go there together. Whatever darkness is inside him, he can let it out. He doesn't have to be afraid.

She leads him up to his limits, gives him the gentlest of nudges, and he dives over. It's happened again and again.

It makes her so happy.

She gives her head a frantic shake, drooping forward. Wishing so much that she could see him. She feels him gazing up at her. _No. Please no, don't._ She tries to form the words, her whimpers all but drowning them. _Please, God,_ and adrenaline courses through her and buzzes into her head. Every nerve ending is tingling and she knows it's not just the ropes.

All at once he's on his feet, crowding in, pinning her to the tree with his body. He rocks his hips and presses his erection against her belly - his hard cock and his knife, just like he said, the edge of the blade digging into the soft flesh of her mound.

His teeth bared against her jaw, growling through them, and it's no surprise to her when his free hand closes over her throat and squeezes.

“I won't do it if you scream for me. You gonna scream for me, bitch? Scream real nice? Gonna make me believe it?” She nods, to the extent she can with her throat in his ruthless grip, and he breathes a laugh and kisses the corner of her mouth below the gag. “I know you are. You're my good girl.” Not as harsh. He's breaking through the mask, a little. “Said you would be and I'm trustin’ you. Here.”

He removes his hand, raises his other, and for a long, airless moment the blade settles over her carotid artery, steady even pressure, and she doesn't dare to swallow.

It slides under the gag, and with a twitch he cuts it free.

She coughs as he pulls her panties loose, tries to work moisture into her mouth, but he doesn't leave it to her; he seals his mouth over hers and fucks his tongue into her, wets hers with his, licks the insides of her cheeks. It's not so much a kiss as him _invading_ her, forcing his way in, biting down hard on her lip as he lowers the knife between her legs and glides the flat of the blade up her pussy.

It's fast, so fast she nearly has time to register its presence before it’s gone and then his mouth is gone too and he's holding the knife to her lips, nudging it insistently between them, and she tastes herself sweet and salt on its edge.

“Clean it all up,” he murmurs. “Be a good girl for me.”

She does. She trusts him. She opens to it and runs her tongue along the flat and the edge, all the way to the tip, and as she does he turns it so that the sharpest edge never comes into too much direct contact with her. Keeps turning it until she's licked it fully clean, presses it one more time against her lips like a kiss - and with an impact that startles another yelp out of her, he stabs it into the tree beside and over her head.

Another snarl. More than one. The alarms rattle with quiet insistence.

He doesn't move.

“Please,” she whispers, moans when he takes hold of her jaw and ghosts his lips against hers.

“Please what?”

She doesn't know. The sounds of the walkers are swirling together with the alarms and she can't stop shivering, and she's so scared and so fucking _wet,_ him big and hard against her and as hungry for her as they are.

“Please.” And it flies up into a cry as he pulls back and the smack of his hand across her tit scatters like light into the trees.

“Please _what,_ bitch?”

She scrambles wildly for an answer, her head hanging limp, drool collecting at her bottom lip and dripping onto her chest - burning hot from where he hit her and stinging with every movement. If she doesn't come up with something he’ll do it again, he'll do it harder, and then he _does,_ his fingers whipping against her nipple, and the sound she manages to block behind her teeth is just short of a scream.

Like she promised him. She said she would scream for him. But oh God, _they’ll hear._

They already do.

“I don't-” This time he doesn't even give her a chance to finish the sentence; he slaps her tits and keeps on going, landing hard on her side above and below the ropes, the meat of her hip, her upper thigh, and she spasms and keens, all her words lost, and it sounds like the walkers are hissing her name.

His hand on her throat again, knee jammed between her legs, and she's grinding helplessly down onto it, broken sounds fluttering in her throat as his fingertips dig into her cheek.

Two words, tight and furious between his teeth as if she really has enraged him, and she imagines his face and his eyes searing through her and thinks _he could kill me, he could actually kill me right now and I couldn't stop him._

She’s never been safer.

“ _Please. What._ ”

She does have an answer. She had it all along. “Whatever you want.” Hoarse whisper. Barely even that. It's stunning that she can manage to speak at all. “Whatever you wanna do to me. Anything.” She drags in a shuddering, tear-choked breath. “Please.”

Silence for a long time, except for their breathing - his shallow and hers in heavy pants. Even the walkers are quieter.

Then his lips, so gentle on hers, and again his smile. “That's my girl.”

She groans when he pulls back, hangs there against the ropes and trembles and listens to the clink of his belt as he unbuckles, his zipper, the walkers and the ringing alarms - and suddenly it sounds like there are twice as many as there were, three times as many, orders of magnitude more, and her breath freezes into a fist of ice around her heart. A fist that shatters when he reaches up and yanks the knife free, and she feels the breeze of his body as he bends and the loosening of the loops of rope binding her ankles to the tree, so sudden that she stumbles, her numb feet tottering.

She hasn't come close to finding her balance before he drives the knife back into the bark, curls his hands under her thighs and slings her legs around his waist and hurtles into her like a battering ram.

Her cry is ragged, strangled, and it goes on as he fucks her into the trunk, surging with the  force of his body as it pounds into hers. The squelch of her drenched pussy, wet smack of their skin colliding. It _hurts,_ it hurts everywhere; the raw places where he slapped her, the scratches the knife left on her and the fresher ones scraping into her back every time he plunges deep, and he's so huge and relentless and he's splitting her open, impaling her on his cock and snarling at her like a walker, snapping his teeth at the base of her neck.

He's not a walker. He's exploding with life, ravenous scorching life, fucking that life into her and drawing it out of her with his lips and his tongue when he takes her mouth. She's not a walker either; he's reminding her like he always does: that she _survived,_ that she _made it,_ that she can take what he gives her because she's strong. There's a fucking herd all around them, throwing itself against the wires and howling with frustrated need, but here in the center it's only him and her, his cock pumping and her feet bouncing against his ass. Somehow she angles herself so that her clit rubs just right against his pubic bone and she tightens and releases around him, urging him on with her body since she can't find the words.

He does have words and he's showering her with them, hopelessly lost between calling her _bitch_ and _slut_ and _baby, sweetheart, sweet girl,_ and they're all true, and as the light pours out of her own broken head and drowns them both, she does what she promised and he swallows her scream of ecstasy as it rips itself free.

She's not afraid of anything.

~

She was wrong. There were only ever a couple of walkers and not very close, and after he cut her loose and lowered her carefully to the ground, he left her and went to deal with them. She was aware enough to count them by sound, aware of when their sound ceased - aware also now that she's not lying on bare ground but on a blanket, another one draped over her.

She smiles weakly, turns her head and blinks up into the glowing blur of the trees. She forgot that he brought the blankets.

He's always thinking about her.

She's still blinking owlishly, waiting for things to come back into focus, when he returns to her and lowers himself down to sit beside her, leaning over and combing his fingers through her tangled hair. Idly working the knots free.

“Y’alright?”

She closes her eyes. Nods. Everything hurts worse than before, and none of it matters. Or it all does, and it's everything she wanted.

He's quiet for what seems like a long time, his hand moving in slow, regular patterns. He finds a rhythm, his nails scratching lightly across her scalp, and she hums with sleepy pleasure. Doves overhead and what sounds like a robin. The leaves whisper. His own silence is heavy in the midst of it, and while she's having some trouble analyzing its finer points…

She reaches up a shaking hand, gropes at his arm. “C’mere.”

He hesitates, but only for a second or two, and then he's stretching out beside her, one hand on her hip and his head pillowed on his crooked arm.

His eyes are still very dark when she meets them with her own, and wide. Difficult to read as his silence was. He's studying her, searching her face. Looking for something.

“I love you.” She snuggles further into the folds of the blanket - old and soft and borrowed from the foot of their bed where it waits for colder nights. “That was perfect.”

_This is perfect._

“Beth,” he breathes, presses closer and wraps his arms tight around her, and she nuzzles at his chest. He's big and warm and strong, and he's so sweet, and he loves her more than she thought anyone would ever love her in her life, and with everything he does he constantly proves it to her.

Not that she needs more proof of that.

He kisses her brow, slow. “You're amazing.” His own tiny smile. “You're fuckin’ incredible, Beth, you know that?”

And just in case she doesn't know, he tells her. He spends the next however long telling her, stroking her hair, her shoulders and back and the sides of her throat, so careful with the parts of her he knows are still hurting. He tells her what he always does: that she's strong, that she blows his fucking mind with how strong she is, that she's so beautiful and he's in such awe of her and she makes him happier than anything ever has or ever will. All the things he usually struggles to say, and somehow it's never a struggle when he's holding her as she drifts back into herself.

As he guides her back. As he carries her in his arms.

Until she can sit up - his hands steadying her until they're both sure - and he helps her into the clean clothes they brought, gives her water, leaves her alone for a few minutes as he gathers up the rest of their things.

The clothes she came here in are basically trash now, but there's no sense in wasting perfectly good rope. She watches him, drinking from the canteen, head tilted and still smiling to herself. If he looked at her, he might think she has some delightful secret she's not ready to share with him.

The sun is lowering into late afternoon by the time they head back through the trees. She's leaning on his arm, but she doesn't need a lot more than that, and by the time they get back to the gates she’ll be able to fake it. Any residual limping can be written off as any number of things, with any number of causes.

Anyway, pretty much everyone in the entire Zone knows by now that they're both into some _unusual extracurricular activities._ Even if they're trying to be discreet.

She would never be able to explain this to anyone. She would sound crazy. She _is_ crazy. But the thing is, she also does have a delightful secret. Not entirely delightful; the secrecy is difficult, one of the other things they both have to push through, because she's trying to coax him through it when it's him on his knees taking what she gives him, but it's early yet, and it's so hard for him.

The secret - not from her but from him - is that she's not the only one here who’s brave. She's not the only one who's amazing, who's strong, who’s beautiful. She knows it. But he doesn't. Not yet.

He does know that he makes her happy. But she doubts he knows how much.

She weaves her fingers through his and squeezes. Immediately he squeezes back, and she sighs and turns her face up to the sun.

Someday he’ll get it. Until then they'll just have to keep going.


End file.
